#pop-break

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with awkward or cringe humor. On the one hand, I can understand why someone would find humor in situations where someone is saying or doing something incredibly embarrassing. On the other hand, I feel pretty strong secondhand embarrassment, and I just generally don’t find watching terrible people dig themselves into holes to be all that funny. It’s a conundrum that makes reviewing Baskets, a new FX comedy by Louis C.K., Zach Galifianakis, and Jonathan Krisel, somewhat difficult. As a show, it revels in the kind of awkward, drawn-out humor you might expect if you’ve seen the co-creators’ former works (Louie, Tim and Eric Show, etc), which I find extremely hit or miss, but there’s also a spark of inspiration about it that I can’t help but keep thinking about.

Kermit’s new girlfriend Denise has been conspicuous by her absence in The Muppets so far. The main plot thread established in the first episode has been the fallout from Kermit and Miss Piggy’s break-up, and you would imagine that Kermit seeing someone new would be a huge part of that. Instead, she’s barely shown up before tonight, making only a couple brief appearances at the very start. And that absence, which leaves Denise less of a character and more of a vague notion, makes it difficult to believe that Kermit and Piggy’s break-up is anything but a dramatic device so we can chart how they get back together (that’s what it is, of course, but ideally the show wouldn’t be making us feel like it is).

I usually like to make somewhat lengthy, expository intros where I dance around how I feel about something when I write a review, but there is simply no dancing around this one: Rock the Kasbah is a terrible movie. In fact, it may be the worst movie I have ever had the displeasure to see in a theater. And I’m not talking about something outrageously awful to the point of comedy, or an ambitious failure, or any kind of bad movie where there is the glimmer of something more within the trainwreck. It is a plodding, meandering mess, an exercise in joyless mediocrity. If you’re curious to hear why it’s so bad, then by all means, read on. But if you only wanted to know if this movie is worth seeing, then you can leave now, comfortable in the knowledge that the answer is a resounding “No.”

Video games have a problem with violence. Now, I don’t mean this in an alarmist, “video games are teaching kids to be violent” sort of way. I don’t think they’re a significant factor in violent crimes or anything like that. But it is an indisputable fact that most games center their core mechanics around violence of some kind. It could be as direct as shooting people in Call of Duty or as whimsical as Mario stomping on a Goomba’s head and poofing it out of existence. Even in games that offer non-violent options, like the Fallout series, it often comes down to simply selecting some dialogue options or putting points in different skills, and you mostly just feel like you’re missing out on something. It seems like violence is an inseparable part of video games.

But does it have to be?

I’ve started writing for Pop-Break, and my first article just went up! You should be seeing a lot more of my reviews and analysis over there now (though I’ll try to put some stuff here every now and then too).

Today on Pop-Break, I get angry about this series premiere of DC’s iZombie.